Deterioration
by Flashback 1701
Summary: "Scanning through the near-ancient pages, he tracked his brother's development by marking his own decline. The weaker his writing, the sloppier his penmanship, the more distracted the entry, the stronger he knew Ludwig had become." Rated for language.


Another angsty, dark fic about Gilbert/Prussia and his life since dissolution.

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><p>He chuckled as he closed the door behind him, head swimming with goodwill and alcohol as he bid his brother a loud "good night". Quickly descending to the basement, the chill of the surrounding air struck him, somehow drawing from him the cheer he had previously held. Suddenly feeling drained, he collapsed onto his couch, yanking his shirt over his head in a half-hearted gesture. Some days it seemed that he was chilling with the guys all day, smiling and having fun, but as soon as he returned home, he felt old again, tired again, defeated again. It was as though that staircase reminded him of the barrier that stood between himself and his companions: they were nations, he was merely a memory.<p>

Flopping back against the stack of pillows on the worn sofa, he kicked his feet up toward the ceiling. He rested like that for a moment, deep in thought, wondering if anyone even noticed the difference anymore. He was acting so differently than he once had: proud, stern, and disciplined. Nowadays he seemed to have become the resident troublemaker/hell-raiser, always restless and never very productive. Somewhere deep within himself, he despised that. He knew he had been trained better, but it was as though his once-vivid memories were leaking slowly from somewhere in his head. Childhood recollections were growing blurred and confused, mid-life crises were flawed and vague. Not only was the world forgetting about him, but he was forgetting about himself.

Truthfully, it scared him. It scared him a lot. Gilbert didn't much appreciate the feeling that one day he might just vanish without a trace. He felt as though each second of history he let slip away led him just one step closer to his demise, an event he'd been postponing since sometime in the 1900s. He began to study his own journals, wracking his brain as he fought to remember the battles, the tension, the friendships. Boundaries were blurring, he could feel himself losing his grip.

That night he dreamt of vanishing. He was laughing with Francis and Antonio, finger absently tracing the lip of his beer mug. Then, slowly, the color faded from the appendage and it faded from sight. The other two nations didn't seem to notice as their friend slowly disappeared, crying out their names in desperation even as his lips fell away into nothingness. The last thing he saw before plunging into a frigid blackness was the image of the two Mediterranean countries turning to leave, his younger brother standing at the door, waiting. He awoke with tears in his eyes as a haunting refrain rang in the silence of the night.

_The Kingdom is dead, long live the Republic._

He spent the rest of the late, early morning reading through his journals, squinting first against the poor penmanship of childhood then against the now-unfamiliar flourishes of old cursive. Carefully reviewing the Seven Years' War, he paused to rub his aching eyes. Even now, his handwriting was as sloppy as it had been when he was a child. Perhaps he was travelling in a deadly circle, having reached the peak of his existence, he was slipping rapidly downhill into oblivion. Up above, he could hear the coffee machine sputtering to life. His brother was battling with the toaster, rumbling to himself as he stormed across the kitchen in his usual, unpleasant morning attitude. The modern troublemaker screeched at Gilbert to charge up the stairs and add to West's early morning discomfort. The wiser military man briskly reined him in and commanded him to continue reading.

If survival was a battle, Gilbert would win. He would never stop fighting for the opportunity to exist. He had been fighting dissolution and death since his birth, and he would be damned before he gave up so easily in the twenty-first century. His brother might have become independent and powerful, but Gilbert would never let him shrug him off entirely. Their histories were intertwining, the same determined, unrelenting blood flowing through their veins. Though there was no longer a territory bearing his name, Gilbert would cling to the material world with an intensity that could not be easily broken.

Somewhere around the late 1800s, he realized that his handwriting's precision was failing. Sentences that were once informative and direct became long, trailing thought processes, drifting off of the subject as easily as an autumn leaf from a tree. It worsened as he read on, finding himself rambling pointlessly for pages on end, searching vainly for the purpose of his existence, for the fulfillment he'd once achieved. Scanning through the near-ancient pages, he tracked his brother's development by marking his own decline. The weaker his writing, the sloppier his penmanship, the more distracted the entry, the stronger he knew Ludwig had become. The pattern continued until he was reading the most recently written pages.

"_Dear diary, I was totally awesome today…_"

"_… stopped by Matt's place for pancakes…_"

"_Roddy's just being a jealous dick…_"

"_… got in a brawl with Francis at a bar._"

"_… West and Feli the other day…_"

"_I've started getting lazy…_"

His hands trembled around the half-filled journal, eyeing the meaningless words that littered the pages. He had once written meaningful reports, in-depth accounts of his day and the important events that had presented themselves.

"_I awoke early this morning to complete drilling with my men. The new recruits are promising, and I believe that we are quite blessed to have obtained such skilled individuals._"

"_Roderich and I are still holed up in the Sudeten Mountains, scrabbling over frozen potatoes like the cold, starving bastards we are. Though I must admit that I draw much pleasure from seeing his wildly disheveled expression, I cannot help but wish for this whole ordeal to pass quickly._"

"_Fritz and I shared a drink today, simply enjoying the other's pleasant company. He is much preferred over his father whom I found to be a tad overly eager to dissolve into fighting. Friedrich Wilhelm II always did have quite the attraction to military men._"

Finally, Gilbert gathered enough wits to slam the book shut and hurl it across the room in disgust. He had become complacent and stupid, frivolously distracted with the monotony of a modern existence and his unfortunate lack of paperwork, diplomatic dealings, and purpose. He was slowly going mad, slipping between his own fingers as a lazy drunk who delighted in causing mayhem and panic. His militancy had vanished somewhere along with his territories and his title.

A wordless cry of rage filled his mouth as he hefted another of his journals, this one dated from 1956-57, and pitched it at the silent television. When it toppled over backwards, glass splintering and plastic groaning, he felt himself both bellow in triumph and despair at the futile gesture. It was far too late for him. The Kingdom of Prussia had died in 1918, and no amount of electronic abuse would change that. The Free State of Prussia had died in 1933, and no number of thrown journals would reassemble him. The Allies had executed him in 1947 and something within him had died on that day. His dignity, his pride, his true patriotism. Now, he was nothing but a husk of what had once existed. A sham.

"Gilbert?" Ludwig was calling down the stairs, his voice a mixture of annoyance and concern. "Gilbert, is everything alright down there?"

"Yeah." Kicking over the couch, he snapped a reply. "Everything's goddamned wonderful!"

There was a pause.

"Fuck this." Gilbert eyed the broken television as unfounded rage bubbled in his chest. He kicked it with his bare feet, not caring as bones broke and joints hyper extended. He simply kicked it again and again until he was numb to everything but the anger he vented in destroying the set. Finally, trembling hands formed fists and plunged through the already-shattered screen. Glass tore through muscle, ligaments, skin until his fingers were heavy with blood and ruined flesh, but still he continued. He couldn't stop, so determined to kill the television. Something within him had snapped, leaving him wild and uncontrollable. He wanted to destroy everything, to dance on the still-smoldering ashes of a burnt building as the match and gasoline canister were clutched in his hands. He wanted to relish the feel of gravel beneath his feet as he stood in the ruins of a wall, sledgehammer resting heavily upon his shoulder. He wanted-

"Stop." Ludwig gripped tightly at his brother's forearm, keeping him from plunging his fist once more through the wreck of a television. "You're being stupid, stop it."

"I'm not being stupid, _West_." He hissed, filling the nickname with contempt for what was possibly the first time. "I'm awake. I'm fucking awake for the first time in fucking decades, and I won't fucking stop just because some brat of a nation told me to!"

There was a madness in his eyes that rattled Ludwig to the core, but he remained firm. "You aren't achieving anything through property damage. Stop being an idiot and look at yourself! Your hands look like hamburger meat! And what the hell did you do to your feet?"

"Fuck you!" Gilbert was screaming, angry-hurt tears burning in his crazy, scarlet eyes. "Fuck you, West, I'm tired of this bullshit!"

"What bullshit?"

"This! All of this!" He waved his arms wildly in his brother's grasp. "I was a fucking Kingdom! A European superpower, goddamn it! Why the hell did it end up like this?"

A sob tore itself free of his chest, followed quickly by its brethren. He fell to his knees, glass embedding itself in the pale flesh there.

"Gilbert…" Ludwig was surprised. His brother was a goofy individual, a screw off and a trickster, but he could be reliable when the situation called for it. This was something he'd never expected.

"You think I like this?" Eyes and nose streaming freely, the ex-kingdom/ex-European superpower glowered up at him. "You fucking think I like living in your goddamn basement like some sort of reject freeloader?"

"I…" _never though about it._

"I don't wanna be like fucking Rome or Gaul or our old man. And the states… fuck." He inhaled sharply, temper flaring once more. "Fucking Bavaria, Saxony, Brandenburg…" He stuttered over the name of his old friend, almost losing his will. "They're still around – they've got kids and bosses. What about Prussia? The guy who fucking put 'em all together? Took a fucking century of his own time to make a goddamn empire out of 'em and the world doesn't fucking have the decency to keep him around?"

Ludwig flinched. "You know why you were…" _dissolved._

Gilbert laughed bitterly, a cold sound that revealed his inner cynicism. "You still believe their horse shit, don't you? Their whole 'Prussia is poison' routine? Lemme tell you, _West_, I don't give a damn what they told you – Hitler was no goddamn Prussian. He was a fucking disgrace to the both of us. I had no more control of the situation than you did, so why's it right to knock me offa the fucking map?"

The younger nation opened his mouth to speak.

"Oh, wait." His brother looked up at him in mock surprise, a glint of deadly anger in his exaggeratedly wide stare. "I seem to recall being disbanded by my own beloved _Bruderlein._ He and his goddamn Nazi-"

"Stop!" This time, Ludwig swung. His fist collided with Gilbert's unguarded head, sending it snapping backwards with a sickening _snckk._ Eyes bulged in shock before they narrowed, a bruise already forming around one of them. Faintly yellowed teeth gritted against the impact.

"I'm sorry!" He, too, was yelling now, angry at his brother's impossible behavior and at himself. "I'm sorry, is that what you want to hear? That I didn't want to do it and that I wish I never had?"

Throwing Gilbert's arms aside, Ludwig took to the stairs. With one last backward glance, he snapped irritably, "Do you think you're the only one who's ever missed being something bigger and better? You really are a selfish asshole like everyone always says."

"West!"

The door slammed, putting between them a solid barrier of hand-crafted wood. In reality, it would be fairly easy to destroy if either of them wanted to do so. A hatchet or even a well placed kick could do away with it in an instant. However, the symbolic wall between them grew until it might as well have been of cement, guarded once more by officers who would not hesitate to shoot those who sought to cross illegally. Both brothers held their breath, waiting for the other to act.

Gilbert slumped to the floor, all strength fleeing him as he clutched his head in ruined hands. Part of him knew that Ludwig had been right, but another part – the unreasonable, un-Prussian part – told him that Ludwig knew nothing, that he was just a brat who would never begin to fathom the complex workings of his elder brother's mind. Grinding his hair restlessly into his scalp, he swore. Long, complicated curses worked their way through his teeth, stringing themselves together into a continuous chorus of frustration. Gilbert Maria battled Gilbo the Awesome, both proud and both unwilling to let up.

Leaning heavily against the door, Ludwig shut his eyes and sank into darkness. He'd never wanted to do away with his brother. Gilbert had always been a strong individual, something constant and reliable in a turbulent world. He agreed that something had changed over time, that his brother's once militant disposition had morphed into a careless, conceited persona. He wondered if it was a side effect of dying. Perhaps Gilbert had lost his sanity, and Ludwig, his brother.

The sound of heavy breathing broke his sorrowful train of thought, drawing his attention to the other side of the door. He could feel Gilbert hesitating beyond the wooden blockade, mentally stumbling over his words in an attempt to say all the right things. He wouldn't, but whatever he said would help to ease the pain. Or, at least, it used to.

"West." His voice was thick with anxiety and something unidentifiable. That was all. There was nothing more that he could say.

Ludwig turned the doorknob slowly, deliberately, as though dreading the moment the door would swing open and leave him vulnerable. Finally, he relocated his brother, fixing his eyes on Gilbert's. Neither of them spoke.

_Thank you._ The younger wanted to say. _I never was able to thank you for building me this house. I'm sorry. I was never able to apologize for using your own house against you. Thank you, I'm sorry._

_Forgive me. _The older wanted to say. _You were created in the midst of war and you knew only bloodlust and death. I'm sorry. I've become an old man unable to accept my role in the present. Forgive me, I'm sorry._

A slowly-healing hand was offered, still trembling from the pain and blood loss caused by the splinters of glass nestled within it. Without flinching, Ludwig accepted it, gripping it firmly as he knew his brother would want.

"I remember you, _Bruder._" He whispered, feeling a stray piece of glass slice into his palm. His blood mingled with that of his brother as they stood hand in hand, awkwardly but comfortably in the other's presence. "I remember everything."

And, somehow, that was all Gilbert needed to hear.

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><p>I discovered that everytime I write a oneshot about Gilbert, it turns into a four-five page ordeal full of reflection and frustration. I always imagine that he would be largely unsatisfied with his present day status. That... and a history nerded so hard when I read the comment about Gilbert: "Deep down, it is said that his true nature is that of a punctual and diligent soldier..." (which would be true given that one's read up on their Prussian history)<p>

Feedback? Please?


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